Monday, July 18, 2011

Tongue and Groove: The Future of Bike Construction

There is right now, taking place over the sea, a bicycle racing called "The Touring of France." In this racing, the men winning the race at those moments will be Thomas Voecklers. He wears a Glorious Shirt of Yellow™, and his tongue goes like this:

I admit I've never been much of a Thomas Voeckler fan in the past. The suitcase of courage; the tortured expressions; the failed breakaways... Really, a Thomas Voeckler ride was exactly like a Lifetime movie special: long, overly melodramatic, and you knew exactly how it would end.

Now, though, I find myself feeling differently. As I mentioned on the Bicycling website, Voeckler has proven himself to be a possible contender for the overall, and suddenly very much I want him to win. Voeckler becoming the first Frenchman since 1826 to win the Tour de France would be a turnaround of profound historical significance. Meanwhile, what do we get if Andy Schleck wins? We'll just see him do more of that that lemon-sucking face he does:

Even a Cadel Evans victory would just encourage more of his trademark "fierce kitten" behavior:

I don't want to lie to the public. Maybe it would be good to say I'm a possible winner of the Tour de France but I'm not interested in that. I don't want to say that I have a chance to win. The Tour has been designed with the last week to be decisive. I'll fight, that's for sure, but let's be honest: I have 0% of chances to win the Tour de France.

O% chance of winning?!? That must be his Frenchness talking. I mean, he's probably right, but clearly he needs to take the American approach by surrendering himself to delusions of grandeur and adopting a grossly swollen sense of self-importance out of all proportion to his natural ability. He could also probably use some American-style motivation:

Then I had another one at the hotel, we hit the restaurant and had to walk through holding a cup of my own urine which I’m sure the people eating dinner really appreciated. Then I woke up and had another test in the morning.

If all that wasn't bad enough, the restaurant also charged Schleck a €150 "corking fee" for bringing his own beverage.

Meanwhile, as the professionals go about their business over in France, many of us do our best to emulate them--though some of us try harder than others. One way to do this is by riding the same bike they do, and a reader has forwarded me this video of somebody who sounds like he's masturbating while reviewing the $15,000 Specialized McFadden Verde:

I’m a 44 yr-old, Cat 2 Masters Racer. I can drive a line, bridge a gap and finish mid pack. I looked down at the speedo while jumping between groups and I was going 31.5 mph with a slight sidewind and not at full effort. 15k? Really for that sensation and speed, I’d pay more.

Really, he'd pay more than $15,000 for this bike? Wow. Well, you know when I'll take a single word in this review seriously? When he actually does this and furnishes a receipt to prove it. I'd love to see a bike reviewer willing put his money where his bad metaphor hole is. In fact, I'll even take him at his word if he pays the $15,000 "base price." However, I'm pretty sure that he won't, because even he must realize that $15,000 is a great deal of money, and that in order to spend it on a bike like this you'd have to be completely insane.

Then again, on the Specialized MacPherson Vulva you can bridge gaps between bloated Specialized dealers on demo rides at will. Plus, you apparently don't even have to pedal it:

The ground effects are real. In the various groups I rode with, before punching out of them, I’d roll up on the wheel in front of me without pedaling.

Well, Mark Cavendish is riding one of these, and if the above were true then he'd fire his leadout man Mark Renshaw. HTC doesn't have a sponsor for next year, and I'm sure they could use the money.

None of this is to say I have any issue with Specialized spending a bunch of money to develop a bike that may offer their pro riders a slight advantage. I also have no problem with them trying to sell the bike to the general public since, hey, they might as well, right? I even believe that you might ride the Specialized Malcolm McLaren Venti Soy Latte and think, "Holy shit, this thing feels fast." Still, it's important to maintain some perspective, and if you want to spend $15,000 to experience what it's like being a pro bike racer, then spend $2,000 on a Scattante and the rest on a Toyota Corolla. Make sure the interior's in decent shape too, because you're going to be living in it.

By contrast, paying $6,000 to stick a walnut between your legs seems like a bargain, and according to another reader you can now do just that:

Really, who hasn't been stoned on the sofa and wondered, "Dude, what if the coffee table was a fixie?"

The build quality—custom made in American Black Walnut with aluminum and titanium metal parts—seems exquisite. So simple and beautiful. I'm sure Steve Jobs is ordering one right now.

Right. I'd wager that Steve Jobs is probably a little more concerned with his health right now than he is with riding around on his living room furniture like an idiot.

By the way, if you're wondering about Bret's odd riding position, he's just using the old "one-cheek" sitting technique. It relieves pressure from the perineum while simultaneously sparing you the indignity of a noseless saddle.

Anyway, nobody with any sense would buy a walnut bicycle, since everybody knows that the alternative frame material of choice is bamboo. Until now, if you wanted a sweet bamboo bike, you had to ride something that was lashed together like Tom Hanks's escape raft in "Castaway." Now, though, yet another reader tells me you can simply grow the bike into its final shape:

That's right, no more joining:

Mr Vittouris, 25, was originally planning to use processed bamboo fibre to make the vehicle. But harvesting, weaving and compressing the bamboo tends to be energy and labour intensive. ''I thought, why not just grow the vehicle into the shape that's required in the first place,'' he said. And that's what he did, literally growing the bamboo vehicle, called Ajiro, by molding bamboo onto a skeleton frame, a process called arborsculpture.

In other words, "arborsculpture" is to bamboo what "monocoque" is to crabon. This could spell trouble for today's artisanal bamboo bike fabricators:

While his bamboo vehicle would be quite expensive initially, eventually he hoped it could be mass-produced, or rather mass-grown. ''It may be possible to plant a field of vehicles.''

Voeckler is either an alien reptilian and receiving support from "greys," or has been self injecting with undetectable extract from the pineal glands of Gila Monsters. When the UCI learns of this, he will be banned.

After 'punching it', I usually roll up on the wheel in front me without pedaling also. On my 20 y.o. steel frame bicycle. You know, 'cuz if you keep pedaling hard in someone's draft you're going to run into them and then they'll 'punch' you. In the face.

The TTTSWRFPTD achieves warp speed when his Frandium fueled Mehvotronic drive engages at 46 MPH. This is his mechanism of time travel. Of course, this is only a theory but with time on the supercomputer at CERN, I can prove this, incontrovertably.

He is onto something, though. Coconut H20 is vastly superior to gatorade as a recovery drink. However, you must get it from the local ethnic grocer for .99 a can. If you buy the $3.69 kind they sell at Whole Foods, I will punch you in the dick.

ant 2nd!Is it possible that the origin of "Fred" is the original editor of Bicycling Magazine, Fred Delong? (who I met when I was a kid...he was on his tandem with his wife (tandems = very Fred, eh?) and a perfectly lovely Fred, though very enamored of all things bike geeky, this in 1974 or so, wherein he had a long conversation w me as we rode along, and finally his wife said, "oh Fred, shut up and ride" which is something that probably still goes on with Freds to this day.Anyone? Bueller?

I wanted to point out that your criticism of the specialized reviewer for being willing to pay more than the list price for an item is a silly criticism. Now we might not be used to people announcing that the price of something is less than they're willing to pay, but that fact is implicit in nearly all purchases. Abstracting from the expensive bicycle, when was the last time you purchased something that you would have been unwilling to spend an extra penny on? Typically, we buy things because they're worth more to us that they cost us, leaving us better off than before. If you were never willing to spend more than you do on anything you buy, then none of your purchases are making you better off, and you are probably making poor budget choices.

If this is still too abstract, consider the last time you bought something to eat when you were very hungry. There was a price on the food, it was certainly not more than you were willing to pay, and the likelihood of the price being exactly what you were willing to pay and not a smidgen less? probably near zero. The quantification of how much more you'd be willing to pay for something than you have to actually pay is called consumer surplus by economists and is a standard measurement of human welfare.

I'm sure this same bike would propel a Cat5 to the mid pack podium, also.I wonder how he feels when some guy leaves him in the dust, sprinting on a steel frame?This weiner could do just as well on a $1500 Aluminum bike with 105 components.

I think comparing bending bamboo into two arcs is fantastic, but could be done easier without "growing " it.

However two triangle uci approved design with appropriate lateral stiffness and strength to have a very beefy bottom bracket will require some epoxy, and champfering. But why let that interfere with a stupid story about a guy building a pedal powered cart. I believe online journalists have absolutely nothing better to do than make me look for my next meal.

The American Bamboo Society will not rest until all cyclist ride bamboo, nature's titanium(TM)!

Calling all sartorial eco-warriors, The Ralph Lauren Clothing Conglomerate has chosen the Calfee Bamboo as one of 8 bikes you must own as a fashion accessory. We at TABS (The American Bamboo Society) lament that not all 8 fashionable bikes were bamboo, but the bamboo-o-lution must start somewhere:Ralph Lauren Commands You To Buy a Bamboo Bike to Be Fashionable

Bamboo, it's what nature intended you to ride if you cared at all about the planet Earth (TM).

Also, Calfee's website forum needs a Bamboo Moderator. Interested AND well-qualified parties can contact Calfee Corporation toll free at 1-800-965-2171 to discuss the position and the number of bamboo bicycles or recumbents you currently own. Mention position "Bambooderator" when you call.

Apparently that dork that wants to pay more than 15,000 for a bike doesn't realize that the most important thing about the bike is--drum roll, please--the rider. On my twenty-five-year-old heavy steel Lotus, I've coasted up behind riders on lightweight carbon bikes and passed them without pedaling--because the thing weighs a ton, as do I, and once you get all that weight moving, it keeps going for a while. Let's see, how many pizzas can I get for $14,850?

"O% chance of winning?!? That must be his Frenchness talking. I mean, he's probably right, but clearly he needs to take the American approach by surrendering himself to delusions of grandeur and adopting a grossly swollen sense of self-importance out of all proportion to his natural ability."

... you obviously don't know the French people! They are a inherently self-important bunch. The French think they are the center of the world, the most intelligent people, they think they are better than anyone else... just like the Americans.

We call them the Americans that speak french. (less and less since they keep using english words everywhere! Just go to Paris and you'll see.)

Glad to see that someone has said out loud what we all know...most of the reviews are little more than paid advertisements. This is particularly true for the tech updates currently running on Versus during the Tour. Does anyone really believe that these little pieces of tech news are anything more than promos for the companies paying for product placement?

Anonymous JULY 18, 2011 1:19 PM:"The quantification of how much more you'd be willing to pay for something than you have to actually pay is called consumer surplus by economists and is a standard measurement of human welfare."

Really? This is why nobody pays attention to economists. Not even other economists. I could pay fifteen thousand for a booger, and get the economists' pat on my "welfare" back, but I'd still be an idiot.

While I totally agree with you about calling out bike reviewer BS, I want to point out that asking people is sometimes the only way we can know about their economic preferences for items which have no price. I'm not saying bikes fall into that category.

For example, the value to you of your baby? We could look at money you spend on your baby and come up with a lower bound, but to estimate how much your baby is really worth to you, how would we know?

We could just ask you. But you might lie. We could ask you how much a specialized menge(southpark S10E05) is worth to you and we could evaluate your truthfulness based on whether you bought one or not. If you say $10 and own one, you lie; if you say $20k and don't own one, you lie. But we don't know about your baby unless we devise some experiment to really get you to reveal your preference for your child. But we can imagine nonetheless that there is some dollar amount that might fully compensate you for your loss. Of course not everybody agrees that such imaginings are a useful way to explore human well-being.

You're just in your excoriation of the reviewer, but I am right nevertheless

Various Anonymous and other commenters, the reviewer your referring to is me and I actually said I'd pay more than 15K for the "sensation" of riding that bike, not the bike itself. I took a puff from the speed hookah that day and a Gonzo -style review resulted. Now I know Snob gots to parse words to make his nut on the blog, after Rodale tells him what to write for Bicycling, so ok.

But then I got into whether it was attainable and for most no it's not. I then compared it to the regular Venge. That model ships without the Mclaren pixie dust, but for sure will still get you into the Top Ten in the Masters field at the Tuesday Worlds just for the matte paint and masked S-WORKS on the downtube. I didn't go into detail about how it compared to an old Raleigh picked up from a 2nd hand store, but that Raleigh would certainly make for a better all-day bike. The Firecrest Zipps had a lot to do with me dropping overweight shop managers too. Though, the biopace rings from Rotor just annoyed me.

The Mclaren Venge is not for the Snob though -- it's for those with disposable income. You know, the ones bent on destroying our sport with their ill-gotten capital gains. The ones investing in bamboo farms.

That's not your typical review either, the one I wrote. You wouldn't find that in Bicycling or here, but I stand by it. Cause that's what I'd tell you when I got off the bike with snot dangling off my face and wheezing from some dense coastal air. BS review? Naw, there's some fire in them words that haven't been shamed out of me by some quasi-what-bike-reviews-should-be-like-post from Snob.

Queue The Who: I'd call that a bargain / The best I ever had. There's only 8 in the world and they're all taken. Cavs has one, a few to the same sheik that brings the Pro Tour to Dubai, one at Specialized, the rest don't know, maybe NSA has one on loan to NASA.

is that goofy ceo of specialized gonna show up at the noon time ride in palo alto with it, and cause mass bib pants explosions among the sand hill robber-baron crowd?

AND the answer is YES!

Somebody get that photo please, cause it will be way more fred-tastic then when he used to show up at the hellyer velodrome with that thermoplastic hotta with the chris boardman hour record wheels.... mayhe 20k in equipment and he'd ride slower than someone on an expensive bike riding very slowly. slow.

You can go pervy here, I guess Snob let's that roll. Your thing, whatever, but a video response with you on a Walmart fixie... now that'd take some work, but I think if you dig deep you can pull of some sensations of your own and with some ductape and cardboard create some ground effects too.

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Another thing about Arbor Sculpture....if you plant a tree, and then start sticking things like bone shards, bits of metal scrap and the like in it's trunk around the base, after about 5 years or so you cut it down,and you've got a heck of a cudgel.

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About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!